No incriminating material found in Pawapuri hostel raid, say police

Biharsharif: A day after the cancellation of NEET (UG) 2026 and the Centre ordering a CBI probe into the alleged paper leak, Pawapuri police on Wednesday raided a boys’ hostel at Bhagwan Mahavir Institute of Medical Sciences (BMIMS), Pawapuri, in Nalanda district.

The raid targeted two hostel rooms occupied by students suspected to have links with a solver gang network allegedly involved in the examination racket. Police said the search was aimed at verifying possible connections between the arrested accused and the wider network.

The operation was conducted in the presence of college officials and videographed in full. Pawapuri police outpost (OP) in-charge Gaurav Kumar said no incriminating documents related to the NEET examination were recovered during the search.

Nalanda police had earlier arrested three persons on May 1 — Awadhesh Kumar, a second-year MBBS student of BMIMS, Pawapuri, along with Aman Kumar Singh and Pankaj Kumar — in connection with the alleged racket.

Police suspect the operation was being run under the direction of alleged mastermind Ujjwal Raj alias Raja Babu, a 2022-batch MBBS student from Muzaffarpur, who is currently absconding.

During interrogation, Awadhesh Kumar allegedly revealed that the gang arranged “solvers” from Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, while key operators were believed to be based in Rajasthan. Acting on leads from the arrested accused, police later detained four more individuals from different districts.

Investigators have also linked the case to Nalanda resident Sanjeev Mukhiya, whose name has surfaced in multiple past examination paper leak cases. His son, Dr Shiv Kumar alias Bittu, had earlier been arrested in connection with a teachers’ recruitment exam paper leak.

Refuting reports of any major recovery, BMIMS superintendent Dr Zaki Anwar Zama said that only identity cards were found during the search. “Police thoroughly checked two hostel rooms of students suspected to have links with the solver gang network. No incriminating material was recovered,” he said.